HP And HealthSTATS Develop A Wristwatch That Tells You Your BP

In today’s world, a large portion of the adult population is suffering from lifestyle diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. High BP is a very common health problem faced my most the working population and senior citizens because of their unhealthy way of life. However, it has been found that the condition is ignored many a times. American Heart Association, almost 25% people are unaware that they actually suffer from it. Of those who know about their high blood pressure, hardly two third populations gets correct treatment and less than half of them have it under control. Sometimes, the hectic schedule doesn’t allow one to go for a checkup regularly. Now, Hewlett Packard, one of the home computer manufacturing giants have combined with Singapore based firm HealthSTATS to develop a hi-tech gadget that can give you your BP report at any time in a matter of seconds.
 


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Healthstats

This awesome device bears a close resemblance to an ordinary digital wristwatch in terms of size, looks, design, etc. The main objective of the manufacturers while developing this product was to allow the people suffering from this problem to continuously monitor their BP so as to keep it under control. Also, this technology is far better and accurate than BP reports that you get after monthly checkup at your physicians clinic. This is because you can get real time information of your blood pressure levels and can also see when it deviates from the normal values. Also this technology is much more comfortable than the conventional inflated cuffs and sphygmomanometer method.

This cool BP monitor comes with a useful software package. The software applications are programmed for different functions that keep the patients and their doctors well informed of their BP and also send alert signals when there is some problem. You can transmit the data from this watch like gadget to your cell phone. Once this is done, you can easily send it up to the cloud storage from where it can be accessed by your doctor. The monitor gives out alarms or alerts when your pressure deviates drastically from the mean value. Also, you can see 24 hour graphs of your BP reports. The researchers believe that such kind of wireless monitors will help the patients to take better care of them and will also reduce their medical bills. It will also help in diagnosis of slightly complicated conditions like night time hypertension. The device can also be a boon for healthy athletes and sportspersons that have some unusual heart conditions that can prove fatal for them in the long term. The study of the variations in the blood pressure at different times will also help the doctors to prevent cases of stroke and cardiac arrests.

The device is first calibrated against a standard wired blood pressure monitor. After that, the developers created algorithms and indices that can give an account of the systolic and diastolic pressure, heart rate, and some other important parameters. The device is designed such that it is positioned against an artery in the wrist. A sensor present in the device and in close proximity to the artery detects the shape of the pressure wave as blood flows through it.

This product is not yet been tested fully. It gave sufficiently accurate and consistent results when tested on people in sedentary positions. However, how well this works when the people are in motion, is an aspect that still requires some improvements. Around a hundred test subjects will undergo a simple test conducted by HealthSTATS in Singapore that will give a better insight into the utility of this BP monitor. Let’s hope that this product is commercially launched in the market soon.

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